


AfterMath

by Merayi



Series: TransFormation [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anger, Angst, Angst and Feels, Anorexic Kylo Ren (Implied), Badass Phasma, Best Friends, Betrayal, Choices, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, F/F, F/M, Foreshadowing, Friendship, Guilt, Hurt, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Internal Conflict, Internal Monologue, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, LGBTQ Character, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Poe Dameron/Finn, Phasma Has A Heart Of Gold Really, Phasma Ships It, Poe Redeems His Bullshit, Poe and Finn are Great, Regret, Rey Needs A Hug, Self-Hatred, Supportive Poe and Finn, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Kylo Ren, Unresolved Emotional Tension, What-If, trouble brewing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 02:13:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19286011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merayi/pseuds/Merayi
Summary: Kyla and Rey both deal with the aftermath of their first kiss in their own ways.





	AfterMath

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know, I know. More angst. More sadness. More self-hatred. I really do promise this time that things will get better for these two. We're getting there. We're nearly at the end of this story.

She couldn’t stop crying. She just couldn’t stop crying.

As soon as the tears had come, it felt like all the fears Rey had ever had returned in this crushing, black snow. Dark thoughts swirled around her head, so fast she couldn’t focus on any one of them long enough for it to settle. Cold seeped up through her core, all the more chilling as it replaced the warmth of the kiss she had stolen.

She had stolen that kiss. She should have known. She shouldn’t have pushed. Kyla had looked so scared, so overwhelmed, and Rey had kissed her anyway, even when she was vulnerable, even when she was distressed. Rey felt like a creep. Worse than a creep. She had just thought… She had been so certain… She had convinced herself that Kyla had wanted that kiss, too.

It was clear she hadn’t.

Kyla was gone. Kyla was gone, and it was all Rey’s fault, and she had tried so hard, and she had failed. Her bedroom felt hollow now, because even though Kyla had worked so hard not to take up space, she was the only thing Rey had been able to focus on. She was bright and beautiful, and Rey had been drawn like a moth to flame from the start.

From the moment Rey first saw Kyla, she'd noticed the look in Kyla’s eyes - that look of vulnerability and pain badly masked under hostility and indifference, that look that screamed “I’M FINE” so loud that no one heard the cries for help underneath it - and in that moment, Rey had seen her own possible future with crystal clarity. She had seen what would have happened to her if she hadn’t been adopted by Maz. She had seen herself after her own abuse, huddling and scared, Plutt’s handprint still red and burning on her cheek. She had seen all the reckless, dangerous things she had done to make the pain go away, things that now she couldn’t believe she had survived. She saw that look, and she had been reminded of the wariness and distrust and anger and pain that she had carried for years.

She couldn’t put words to it now, but it had felt like the Universe was giving her a chance to prove she was worth the help she had received. She was in a place that she could help someone else the way Maz had helped her. Kyla needed help, and Rey needed to feel needed. Maz - with her endless patience and gentle soul - was the person Rey looked up to most in the whole world. Maz was the person she called her mother even though they shared no blood. Rey had been given a chance to be like Maz, to help someone else like Maz had helped her, to prove she had learned the lessons Maz had taught.

Rey had thought that it would be okay. Yes, Kyla was hurting, but Rey had ten years of experience in therapy to draw from; that was longer than some people spent getting their Doctorates. She could just play therapist until she could convince Kyla to get professional help, and in the meantime, she might make a friend. She might find someone else with shared life experience that a lot of other people didn’t have. She might find someone else who really understood the weird, confusing trials of being a LGBT+ woman in a world that saw a woman’s love for another woman as a fetish.

But, then she had to go and fuck it up by getting in too deep and falling in love too fast.

Because, it was only now that she allowed herself to see that. She loved Kyla. She loved Kyla so much, but she had hurt Kyla, and now she hurt so badly.

Rey should have listened to the thoughts that told her right from the start how she was attracted to the tall, striking woman with the silky, black hair. She knew better. She shouldn’t have pushed those thoughts down, because she knew that they would always find a way to escape. And, they had. They had been there from the beginning, clouding her mind and dampening her judgments and warning her that things weren’t so simple. She hadn’t listened to her own fucking advice.

In even the handful of times she had spent with Kyla, it had taken so much willpower not to show how deeply her emotions ran, to take a step back, to be steady and comforting, to not pull that too-thin body into her arms, to not kiss those soft, red lips a million times before she actually did, to not cry at the things Kyla told her, to not scream in fury when she heard about the injustices Kyla had faced, to not hunt down every person who had hurt that vulnerable young woman.

She had tried so hard to be what Kyla needed. She had tried so hard to be steady, consistent, dependable, a calm presence, an unflappable confidante. She had tried to turn herself into the stable foundation that Kyla could build herself up from. It wasn’t a matter of pity, or selfishness, or wanting to be a saviour. She had just wanted to help. She was sure now that she had botched it, blundered through their interactions saying casually transphobic things that she didn’t even notice but that hurt Kyla anyway.

It had been draining in a way she had convinced herself didn’t matter. Kyla was the one struggling. It wasn’t Rey’s place to demand that Kyla support her just because Rey couldn’t deal with trauma she hadn’t lived.

That wasn’t to say that Rey regretted meeting her. Never. Hanging out with Kyla had been the most fun that Rey had had in ages. Being with Kyla made the little things like having a picnic and reading a book and sitting by the river exciting and new. She saw the world that little bit differently with Kyla there.

And, now Kyla wasn’t there, and it felt like a veil had been drawn between her and the world.

At some point, Finn and Poe were there, standing in her doorway and exchanging concerned glances. Finn knelt by her bedside and asked if she was okay, but Rey couldn’t answer. She rolled over pointedly, facing away from the door, away from her friends’ worried faces. She held her breath so that they wouldn’t hear her cry.

She just couldn’t deal with them right now. She was still too angry. They weren’t even supposed to be home. She had dealt with stuff worse than this alone before, and she could do it again. She just wished they would go the fuck away. Maybe, if she thought it loud enough, they would hear it.

After far too long, Finn just left a large glass of water on her bedside, kissed her forehead, and got up from where he had been kneeling beside her bed. He paused just by the doorway, told her that he and Poe were there when she was ready, and left the door ajar when he walked out.

Even though Rey had been wanting them to leave her alone, somehow it hurt worse when they did.

Rey punched her pillow. The plunge of her fist into the polyester was satisfying. She did it again. And again. And again, until punching turned into grabbing handfuls of pillowcase, and she was sobbing again, big gulping breaths that she couldn’t stop. It was just too much. It just hurt too much.

It just hurt too fucking much.

She couldn’t even imagine what Kyla must be doing, or thinking, or even where she was. She wondered if she had people like Finn and Poe to talk to. Would the blonde woman at the door play that role? Would Kyla even want to reach out to her? Rey thought of how betrayed Kyla must feel, how let down, how degraded. She was sure that Kyla must regret that kiss; it had been practically forced on her by someone she had thought was a friend. With a single moment, Rey had made her a statistic.

That thought made something deep in Rey shatter. Her heart imploded in a storm of blood, and her ribs surged in to fill the void, and she couldn’t breathe for the splinters.

Rey curled in on herself, body sucked into its own hollow, and she screamed her tears.

  
  
They heard the yells from the living room. In a half-second, Finn was up off the couch, heading for the corridor, but Poe grabbed his wrist.

“Didn’t you hear that?” Finn demanded, “We gotta go!”

Poe let out a breath, looked at the ground, ran his other hand through his hair, but didn’t let go.

“Look, Finn,” he started, “I know that sound, okay? I heard my buddies cry the same when their buddies didn’t come back. She’ll come find us when she needs us, but… would you really want your friends around to watch your insides turn into your outsides?”

“I… I don’t know….” Finn hesitated, staring at the door, torn. “How can we just leave her like that, though? She won’t even tell us what happened!”

“I know it’s hard. It is better, though. C’mere.” Poe pulled Finn into his arms, settling the curly-haired head on his chest, a hand coming up to cup his jaw and press a palm to his ear. “Can you hear my heartbeat?”

“Uh-huh,” Finn mumbled into his shirt.

“Focus on that, okay?”

In the quiet living room, it was hard to block out the sound of Rey’s anguish. Finn did his best despite every instinct he had telling him otherwise. Poe’s time in the Air Force had been short and explosive, and he generally knew what he was talking about when it came to grief. He had had to process a lot more of it than Finn had.

“Poe?”

"Yeah?”

“Did you ever cry like that?”

“Yup.” Poe tipped his head back against the couch and closed his eyes, not loosening his arms from around his boyfriend’s stocky body. “I did.”

“And, you really didn’t want anyone there?”

“Of course I did. I wanted Muran. Anyone else being there just felt like they were taking up his spot.”

“So, we really can’t help Rey?”

“Not yet. Not until she wants our help.”

The two fell into a silence that was companionable, if a little strained. Finn tucked his head closer under Poe’s chin and buried his face into his chest.

“Is this our fault?”

“I don’t know.” Poe didn’t want to admit how guilty he felt. The emotion had settled like a particularly off meal in his stomach. He wished he could take his teasing words and cram them back down his throat. “Probably at least a bit. But, we don’t know the whole story. There might be more to it.” At least, he was hoping so.

“Yeah. Maybe. I’m worried for Rey.”

“Me, too.”

  
  
Phasma wasn’t home when Kyla came flying off the bus, down the road, through the door, up the stairs, and into her room. Phasma didn’t come home until late that evening, with a fast food dinner for one, and no idea that anything was wrong.

Usually, she would know. She would know real soon after walking inside, because Kyla would be throwing things or breaking things or in the midst of a screaming meltdown.

This went beyond meltdown. This was beyond even tears. This had gone into numb disbelief. This had gone into the dark mind-hollows where Kyla went when she needed to not feel anything. While Phasma sat obliviously at the kitchen table eating her burger, Kyla was slumped at the bottom of her bedroom door, staring at the wall, unfeeling, unseeing, lost so deep in her own mind that the world around her didn’t even register.

Phasma finished her burger, watched some TV, and went to bed. Kyla fell asleep on the floor, having not moved or spoken or even cried in hours.

The sunlight through her tiny windows didn’t wake her. The sharp crick in her neck and shoulders didn’t wake her. Her empty hunger didn’t wake her. No, she only woke when the door behind her swung open and she toppled into the corridor. Cat-quick and furious, she yelled and lashed out, cursing when her fist hit Phasma’s chromed shin.

“Oh. You are still alive,” the blonde woman said, looking down at Kyla, who had spun around into a crouch, cradling her hand. Despite the fact she had barged into Kyla’s room, her voice was monotone, disinterested. “You look like shit.”

“Why do you care?” Kyla stood and straightened, ignoring the way her vision tunneled and her head spun. She rolled her head on the long stem of her neck, arching her spine with her hands on her back. A series of loud cracks and pops accompanied the action. Fuck, she ached everywhere.

“Because it’s been 24 hours since there’s been any sign of you. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to be stuck paying rent by myself.”

“Yeah, well, clearly I’m fine.” Kyla turned her back, hunching her shoulders.

Phasma didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. A glimpse of herself in that damned fucking mirror told Kyla that her flatmate was never going to believe her.  Her hair was ratty and frayed, the braids matted together. Her skin had broken out in angry spots under the makeup that had been left on it too long. Her black eyeliner had run into long streaks down her neck, and there were dark circles under her eyes that had nothing to do with any fashionable smoky look. Her lipstick was smeared around her mouth and down her chin, red as blood.

Kyla stared at herself in the mirror, hating every inch of what she saw.

“Did the date go well or not? I can’t tell.” Phasma asked from the door.

“Fuck you.”

“Guess not, then, huh?”

Kyla whirled back around, stamping her foot still in its heavy boot with a thud, and slammed the door in her flatmate’s face. She snarled as she heard Phasma’s heavy footsteps down the hall. Her bottom lip trembled. Her whole body trembled. Her hands were locked in white-knuckled fists. Her shoulders hunched painfully, the tendons in her neck standing out like whipcords, her too-square jaw working. Anger blazed behind her eyes, red-hot, bubbling up through her pain. She was on the suctioning shore of a meltdown, swallowed down by the rage and fury; everything in her wanted to break something, to hurt someone. She was so angry, so ready to just fight, but there was no one she could lash out at, nowhere for her awful temper to go but deeper inside herself.

There was Rey.

That thought shocked some of the rage out of her. It would make it so much easier. It would make her choices so much simpler. But, she had never before been angry at Rey, and the idea of it was… opprobrious, somehow.

Kyla took a deep breath and sank backward onto her bed. The anger hadn’t burned itself out, but it was a hot-coal ember simmering down low in her guts. It was more manageable like that. It was just about normal like that. Anger was always on a back-burner in Kyla’s mind, never too far from boiling over.

She tried. Damn it, she tried. But, no matter how hard she tried, Kyla couldn’t focus her anger at Rey. So, she just focused on hating herself. That was nothing new. That was almost a comfortable hatred, well-worn like old boots.

And, that just proved why she couldn’t stay friends with Rey. Kyla had far too much baggage, too much history, too much pain. Rey had tried so hard - Kyla could see that, and she was more grateful than she could ever put into words - but the cis girl just didn’t need to deal with the problems Kyla carried around. Being a support person for a mess like Kyla, never mind being the ONLY support person for a mess like Kyla, was just too much to ask. Kyla had burned out pretty much anyone who had ever tried to help her. She didn’t want to burn Rey out, too. She loved her too much.

Fuck.

Love was so fucking scary.

Kyla just couldn’t do it. She wanted to, more desperately than she had ever wanted anything, but she just couldn’t do it. She didn’t want to end up like her parents. She didn’t want to be hurt yet again.

The answer was right there. She just didn’t want to accept it.

It took two days agonizingly trapped in her own head for Kyla to come to terms with it. The choice sunk down into her stomach like lead, poisonous and heavy, leaving her sick and shaky and bitter. She had to let Rey go. She had to sever ties, pretend she had never met her, no matter what the cost, no matter what she had to say to convince her that she meant it.

Kyla wanted to meet with her, one last time, because Rey deserved to be told in person. She deserved to be told why and she deserved to know it was not her fault. She would send Rey one last text and plan a time to meet. Kyla tried to tell herself that it wasn’t because she wanted to see that beautiful face one last time or because she wanted one last kiss before she said good-bye.

If Kyla was painfully honest with herself about the choice she wanted to make, she would admit that she wanted to love Rey until the skies bled. But, she couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair. Sure, if that kiss meant as much to Rey as it did to Kyla, the conversation they needed to have would hurt, but it would be better in the future. Rey deserved so much more. Rey deserved someone so much better. Rey had been so selfless in her attentions toward Kyla, and this was the one thing she could do in return. Kyla was doing this for Rey, not for herself, because she knew she would ruin that wonderful, bubbly woman.

The text she drafted was even more difficult and painful than the first one had been. It took everything in her for Kyla to bring herself to hit _send_.

  


Finn and Poe looked up in one motion as Rey shuffled into the living room the next evening. She looked awful, cadaverous, curled around her favourite plush toy like a zombie child. Her phone dangled from her fingers like she was too numb to hold it.

“Oh, Rey,” Finn started, and that was all it took for Rey to dissolve into tears again and fall into his offered hug. She sobbed into his shoulder as Poe came over from the table and rubbed her back. They let her cry, unmoving and gentle, foundations of stone under her as she trembled.

Finally, Rey’s voice straggled up from Finn’s shoulder.

“I got a text.”

“Yeah?” Poe inquired.

Limply, Rey held up her phone, where the messages app was open on the screen.

_Hey, Rey. I’m so, so sorry about last Friday. I don’t know what to say. We need to talk. Do you want to meet me at that cafe we went to? I can’t remember the name; the one you took me to after the library. Let me know when you’re available. I’m sorry. Kyla._

“I don’t know what she wants,” Rey mumbled, “I can’t tell what she means. I can’t tell if she’s mad at me. Why don’t texts have inflections??? Why does it sound like she’s saying goodbye?”

“Maybe she just wants to apologize?” Finn suggested, shrugging the shoulder Rey was not leaning on, “She feels bad, so she wants to make it up to you in person?”

“Maybe.” Rey’s voice betrayed her fear. “But… what if? What if…?”

“What if…” Poe interrupted, “she really likes you? What if she wants to tell you why she acted how she acted? What if she wants to ask you out officially?”

“But, I hurt her!” Rey cried, taking a step back, scrunching her nose and shaking her head, “I hurt her feelings and I freaked her out. I came onto her when she was vulnerable and I knew it and I did it anyway! You didn’t see her! She was terrified! Why the fuck would she want to date me after that?”

“No, we didn’t see her. Look, Rey, we love you. You know that.” Poe said, motioning between him and his boyfriend. Finn nodded his agreement. “You haven’t told us what happened between you two. All we know, you kissed and you panicked and she left in a bit of a hurry. I don’t think it’s as big a deal as you’re making it. She kissed you back, didn’t she?

“Well… at first… yeah. But….”

“But, you don’t know,” Poe interrupted again, “So, you can either tie yourself in knots over what she might mean, or you can text her back, go to the cafe, and have her tell you. Just follow her lead and see what happens. Okay?”

Rey’s mouth opened. It shut again. It drew into a tight, little line. Dammit. When was Poe the voice of sense? He was right, of course, but that didn’t stop that text making her phone burn like a hot coal in her pocket.

“Okay.”

With suggestions from Finn and Poe, Rey drafted a quick reply. She didn’t bother this time with any social norms or waiting times to text back. This balance between them was too vulnerable to play games.

_I’m free before work on Friday. 11am? Does that work?_

Rey wasn’t sure what was going to happen. She wasn’t sure what the result of their meeting would be. She missed Kyla desperately. She just wanted to have her friend back, and if that meant never kissing her again, that would be a fair exchange.

 


End file.
